Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Does Legislative Representation Properly Represent the Votes of the Electorate? (Part 2)

Last week I looked at how the results of the November 6 election were reflected in party affiliation of the candidates elected to the House of Representatives. Today, I want to continue in that same theme, but with a different state: Pennsylvania. Why Pennsylvania, you ask? I think that the answer will become self-obvious as I get a bit deeper into the analysis. Just remember that the question is whether Congressional representation properly represents the will of the people as reflected by the votes that were cast.

Note that all of the vote total information in this post comes from the website of the Pennsylvania Department of State (as of November 12, 2012).

Before diving into the Pennsylvania races for the House of Representatives, let’s first take a brief look at how the vote totals broke down for the statewide contents in Pennsylvania (minor parties omitted):

President

Mitt Romney (R)

2,595,174

46.8%

Barack Obama (D)

2,887,221

52.0%

Senate

Tom Smith (R)

2,430,995

44.6%

Bob Casey (D)

2,921,798

53.7%

Attorney General

David Freed (R)

2,241,524

41.6%

Kathleen Kane (D)

3,027,541

56.1%

Auditor General

John Maher (R)

2,469,766

46.5%

Eugene Depasquale (D)

2,643,072

49.7%

State Treasurer

Diana Vaughan (R)

2,330,049

44.0%

Robert McCord (D)

2,782,891

52.6%

Democratic candidates won every statewide race and only one of those had a margin of less than 5 points (Auditor General).

So, knowing nothing else, what would you predict for the breakdown of Pennsylvania’s 18 seats in the House of Representatives? A little “back of the napkin” math, working from a presumed vote spread of about 52% for the Democratic candidates (rounded up), would suggested that Democrats should have won 9 or 10 of those 18 seats.

But here is the reality:

1st CD

John Featherman (R)

39,752

15.0%

Robert Brady (D)

226,189

85.1%

2nd CD

Robert Mansfield, Jr. (R)

31,668

9.4%

Chaka Fattah (D)

302,746

89.4%

3rd CD

Mike Kelly (R)

159,630

54.7%

MIssa Eaton (D)

119,905

41.1%

4th CD

Scott Perry (R)

179,340

59.7%

Harry Perkinson (D)

103,387

34.4%

5th CD

Glenn Thompson (R)

172,616

62.9%

Charles Duman (D)

101,866

37.1%

6th CD

Jim Gerlach (R)

187,008

57.1%

Manan Trivedi (D)

140,659

42.9%

7th CD

Patrick Meehan (R)

203,977

59.5%

George Badey (D)

139,067

40.5%

8th CD

Mike Fitzpatrick (R)

199,283

56.7%

Kathy Boockvar (D)

152,515

43.4%

9th CD

Bill Shuster (R)

165,992

61.6%

Karen Rambsburg (D)

103,338

38.4%

10th CD

Thomas Marino (R)

168,745

65.9%

Philip Scollo (D)

87,449

34.1%

11th CD

Lou Barletta (R)

163,733

58.5%

Gene Stilip (D)

116,315

41.5%

12th CD

Keith Rothfus (R)

167,396

51.5%

Mark Critz (D)

157,364

48.5%

13th CD

Joseph Rooney (R)

92,415

31.0%

Allyson Schwartz (D)

205,287

69.0%

14th CD

Hans Lessman (R)

71,805

23.1%

Mike Doyle (D)

239,656

77.0%

15th CD

Charles Dent (R)

161,231

56.6%

Rick Daugherty (D)

123,735

43.4%

16th CD

Joseph Pitts (R)

154,337

55.0%

Aryanna Strader (D)

109,026

38.9%

17th CD

Laureen Cummings (R)

103,319

39.5%

Matthew Cartwright (D)

158,422

60.5%

18th CD

Tim Murphy (R)

204,784

63.8%

Larry Maggi (D)

115,975

36.2%

Some observations (I did the math so you don’t have to):

Democrats won just 5 of the 18 seats (with Republicans, obviously, winning the other 13).

The total number of votes cast in House races was very similar to the total number of votes cast in the other statewide races.

The lowest winning percentage by a Democrat was 60.5%; the others received 69%, 77%, 85.1%, and 89.4% of the votes cast in their districts.

By contrast, only four winning Republicans received at least 60% of the vote (65.9% being the highest).

But here is the amazing statistic: The Democratic candidates received 2,702,901 total votes; the Republicans received 2,627,010 votes. Yes, those numbers are correct. Read them again.

In other words, the Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives received 50.71% of all votes cast compared to just 49.29% for the Republicans. And yet the Republicans won 13 of 18 races.

Now think about those results for a moment. Democrats won every statewide race, with around 52% of the vote. But they lost 13 of 18 House races, even though they earned nearly 51% of the vote.

Would it surprise you if I told you that for the 2010 redistricting, Pennsylvania’s legislature was controlled by Republicans with a Republican governor? The online journal Real Clear Politics labeled the job that Pennsylvania’s legislature did “the Gerrymander of the Decade”.

Now I’m not suggesting that only Republicans engage in gerrymandering for political purposes. Both sides do it, though I do suspect that an analysis would show that Republicans either do it more or at least more effectively.

In any event, the ability of state legislatures to draw lines that serve not to give voice to the broadest segment of the population, but rather, to insure electoral victories for the chosen party, is a real problem in the overall fairness of our legislative process.

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